The Devils lose, lets get over it. Actually, it’s kind of a relief because now the talk about records can stop and the Devils can focus on the things they are doing wrong, which even though they are 8-2-0 in the last 10, they are doing some things wrong..especially last night!! I am bummed about the way they played and how they lost though. It would be one thing if NJ played a flawless game and still managed to lose but NJ played a sloppy game last night and lost.
I don’t think the Devils brought their A game with them to Philadelphia. I thought the defense was terrible and for some reason, kept allowing the Flyers offense to get in deep and even behind them at times, creating too many chances for a team with that much talent. The Devils gave up 35 shots and just too many scoring chances. I have to give a partial hats off to Marty Brodeur because he did keep the Devils in the game for a while, but like I said it is a partial hats off and I will get to that.
Philadelphia did an amazing job at blocking shots and I don’t know if that deserves a pat on the back or is that rests on the Devils shooters to find better ways of getting the puck to the net. The Devils manages to get 35 shots on goal but took 73 shots and watched the Flyers block 26 of them. The Devils went nearly 12 minutes in the third period without getting a single shot on goal.
Now, back to Marty for a minute. There are moments when I think he is absolutely brilliant and then there are moments where he frustrates the crap out of me. The third goal he let in last night was one of those moments. That pucked belonged to Bryce Salvador and I think he was going to make the play and clear the puck but Marty jumped in front and poke-checked it right to James Van Riemsdyk, and in the process put himself out of position and saw Riemsdyk fire it right past him. I don’t know what Marty saw but he should have let his defense do their job. The hard thing about that goal is that Parise scored with less than a second left would have been the equalizer if Marty didn’t make that mistake.
The Devils stay on the road and head to Nashville on Thursday and Dallas on Saturday which are games that they can win, erase the memory of a bad game in Philly and keep having people think of the Devils as a strong team and not just a flash in the pan. As for the Flyers, they seem to have our number so far this season but we do face them 4 more times this season and will have plenty of oppurtunites to change our luck against them.
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